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Shares of Weibo rose as much as 41 percent in their US debut on Thursday, sweeping aside concerns that censorship in China will hurt the growth of the country’s Internet sector and broader worries about the outlook for tech-sector stocks.

Investors are watching the biggest debut of a Chinese Internet company in years, hoping for clues on demand for the highly anticipated IPO of far larger e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

Sina Weibo’s early gains came after the owner of a Chinese Twitter-like messaging service priced its shares at the very bottom of a target range of $17 to $19, and cut its offer to 16.8 million shares from 20 million.

Shares of Weibo, whose name means “micro blog” in Chinese, soared as much as 41 percent to $24.48 in early afternoon trading.

That surge caught some investors off-guard because of its well-known susceptibility to Chinese censorship.

Weibo closed at $20.24, an increase of just under 20 percent on the day.